O1 Wild Elephant Valley
Wild Elephant Valley is a breeding base for Asian elephants in Yunnan, and there are still more than 1 elephants living in it. They often come out of the valley and come to the stream to drink and play.
Elephants are social animals. The oldest and most experienced elephants are the most authoritative in the family. Elephants are matriarchal families, and there are only females and underage males in the family. When the male elephant grew up, he was driven out of the family by the leader of the herd, and the male elephant lived alone in the valley.
Male elephants can't choose a mate in their own family, thus avoiding inbreeding. For this reason, elephants are smart and strong, and the average life expectancy of elephants is similar to that of humans.
We followed the staff in the valley into the Wild Elephant Valley, looking for traces of wild elephants. Wild fruits and leaves in the valley are all favorite foods for elephants. Wild fruit bears on tall trees, and elephants suck the fruit with their long noses. When the nose can't reach it, several elephants will surround the tree, shake the branches together, shake the fruit down, and then circle it with their noses to eat.
Some plants in the valley are poisonous, such as Guanyin and Poinsettia. Elephants are very smart. They won't touch or eat these beautiful leaves.
The times when wild elephants come out frequently are February, August and October. The wild elephant didn't meet, so we went to the elephant school to watch the performance of the domestic elephant. Elephants performed raising the school flag, flying knives and playing football, and standing on their arches to welcome guests from afar.
I saw the magical dead-leaf butterfly in Wild Elephant Valley. When the butterfly folds its wings, it becomes a dead leaf. If you don't look carefully, you will definitely make the fake come true. When it spread its wings, it instantly became a beautiful Hua Hudie. This dead-leaf butterfly has a life span of eleven months, while other butterflies have a life span of no more than two months, and it takes more than one month for the butterfly to break out of its cocoon.
I can't help feeling sorry for butterflies. Long cocoon breaking, short time after transformation. Butterflies are a flash in the pan, but they also fully explain what a beautiful butterfly is.
2 primeval forest
Xishuangbanna is a subtropical region, and the forest coverage rate of the primeval park is over 98%, so it is a natural oxygen bar.
There are hundreds of peacocks living on the mountain where the forest entrance goes. Peacocks heard the music and flew down from the opposite mountain, over the pond and into the open space in search of food.
There are monkey families living in the forest, each guarding its own territory. Occasionally meet together, thinking that the other side is going to seize the territory and fight with each other. And to his family companions, it is very friendly.
The bananas fed by tourists are often preempted by the big monkeys because of their slow response. The little monkey had to chase after the big monkey. After the big monkey took a few bites, he would also give the little monkey a little. The world of animals is also full of warmth.
There are dense trees in the primeval forest, and the trees are desperately growing up in order to compete for sunshine. Most of the trees I see are tall and straight trunks.
From time to time, we see eight wonders in the rain forest: dripping tip, single tree growing into forest, hanging garden, plank root phenomenon, mutual strangulation, flowers growing on the path, fruit bearing on the old path, and crossing of vines.
In the forest, I saw a banyan tree next to an longan tree. The banyan tree kept growing new roots. Its roots climbed on the longan tree, making it unable to see the sun all year round, and the nutrition of the longan tree was also sucked by the banyan tree. After many years, the dragon tree slowly withered, which is also a common strangulation phenomenon in tropical rain forests.
In the sky, tourists sometimes slide from the top of a tree to the top of another tree. This is a brave person gliding in the air. This is the shooting place of the TV program "Run Brothers".
Trash cans along the forest are all frames made of bamboo, and there are two in each place. Bamboo is made from local materials, which is not only environmentally friendly, but also convenient for forest workers to carry garbage outside the forest.
O3 mansha ancient village
mansha ancient village is where the Dai people live. There are not many people who can speak Chinese in the stockade, so we boarded the small bamboo building and got a taste of the Dai people's living habits.
Xiao Yang, a daughter of the Dai family, studied in a high school in a Han school. She is also a cultured person in the stockade. Her house is relatively large. There are four people in her parents' family, four in her sister's family and three in her own family. They live together and form a big family.
The houses of the Dai people are two-story wooden buildings, and the building materials are wood and bamboo. The first floor is cooking and pushing tools. The pillars of the house are square trees, so that snakes can't climb up. The second floor is the living room and bedroom. The door of the bedroom is covered with cloth. It is said that the bedroom is their soul and outsiders can't see it.
Xiao Yang's mother gave birth to two daughters and a son. Give birth to a daughter, the village gives home a hundred rubber trees and an acre of land, but give birth to a boy with nothing.
When a boy is eight years old, he leaves home and stays in a temple for ten years before returning home. Boys are called "losing money" locally. Before they get married, they should live in the living room of the woman's house for three years, learn how to make tables and oranges, learn how to make silver ornaments, learn how to cut rubber trees and so on.
if you are not favored by the woman within three years, you may return to your home at any time. Of course, the woman's family has nothing to lose. The boy worked for free, and returned home in the first year. The woman gave the boy a chicken, a pig and a cow in the second year and the third year.
three years later, if both men and women agree with each other, the boy brought hundreds of rubber trees from home, silver headdresses and belts made for the woman, tables and oranges made by himself, drove an ox cart, married the woman's house and became a member of the woman's house.
In Xiao Yang's family, her mother has the highest status and authority. The income in the village is distributed equally. Xiao Yang's mother gives the money to women at home, but men have no income.
When Xiao Yang's husband got married, he brought 5 rubber trees and 1 from the village. Xiao Yang has 6 rubber trees. A few years ago, a rubber tree could earn three or four yuan a day, but now it is only over one yuan.
Xiao Yang told us that she failed to live up to expectations and gave birth to a "loss-making product". By the time her son got married, she was old and had to rely on her sister's two daughters to provide for her old age. If there is no daughter at home, we can only rely on the village to provide for the elderly, which is like our five-guarantee households here.
O4 Lan Village
We went to Lan Sai, where the enthusiastic Hani people live.
The name of the Hani nationality is the father and son's surname. The metaphor is Harry Reagan, which means father and son.
Hani people rob marriage. The criteria for a man to choose a girlfriend are dark skin and thick calves. They think that dark skin means hard work, and thick calves mean strength. If the girls in the stockade have white skin and thin calves, it will be difficult to get married. The man in the stockade is called Ali, and the woman is called Abu, because men should have strength and women should be able to accumulate cloth.
Hani people live in mountainous areas and only plant rice for one season a year. After June every year, rice begins to head. In order to prevent all kinds of pests and ensure that rice is not eroded, a "grasshopper catching festival" will be held in the stockade.
On the festival day, all the men, women and children in the village go to the field to catch grasshoppers, and each household has to catch a bamboo bucket, about 2 Jin. Then divide the grasshoppers into four piles, head, feet, body and wings, and put them among the bamboo pieces beside the ridge or ditch to intimidate the grasshoppers and other insects that are not caught.
Half an hour later, the grasshopper was taken back to eat with Baba. I heard that grasshopper meat is a little sweet. When leaving the ridge, he shouted, "Oh, grasshopper, I won't catch you for three days, and you are not allowed to eat rice for three months."
In the stockade, everyone danced a unity dance with Ali and Abu of Hani nationality, and danced a bamboo pole dance. The whole stockade was full of songs and laughter.
4
In Xishuangbanna, we visited the Lancang River at night, which is the Mekong River. Came to Xiaozhai ~ Mengjinglai on the border between China and Myanmar, overlooking the mountains and forests of Myanmar across the river; Walked into the house where the cute child lived in the TV series "Where is Dad?"; Watched the grand Songkran Festival; I tasted the sweet banana, the small and exquisite cream pineapple ...
Xishuangbanna is really a magical place.